


Transit of Venus: Alternate Ending (Tragic)

by Saveourskinship



Series: Fates and Free Will [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Ending, Death, Editing This Was Torture, F/M, Had To Read It Again and Again, Soulmate Magic Don't Mean Nothing, Suicide, Super Duper Big Heartbreak, You Thought The Original Ending Was Sad? Have Fun With This One, You asked for it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:27:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29644383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saveourskinship/pseuds/Saveourskinship
Summary: This is the tragedy ending for the completed fic "Transit of Venus" a subversive take on the soulmate trope. A link to to the Transit of Venus fic will be linked in the body of this fic in case you're intrigued why I've received a few comments to share an even more sad ending.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger/Theo Nott
Series: Fates and Free Will [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2152650
Comments: 59
Kudos: 16





	Transit of Venus: Alternate Ending (Tragic)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there, had a few people intrigued about the tragic ending for this my Transit of Venus series so thought I'd upload it as a one-shot.
> 
> Please beware that this is sad. Major Character Death and potential gore warning if you have a particularly good visual imagination.
> 
> It begins just before the four men split up to wait somewhere for Hermione to be there for her when she dies. If you need to, you can re-read Chapter Fifteen: The End of Transit of Venus and switch over when Devin respells the chopstick to bring them back to England.

Here is the link to the rest of the Transit of Venus fic: [Transit of Venus fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28700394/chapters/70364766)

* * *

****

**Transit of Venus Chapter Fifteen: The End Alternate Ending**

Devin looked between them all. “So, everyone ready? No one wanting to make this hellish experience even worse?” There was silence. “Good.”

He held out the chopstick and Harry placed a finger on it while Draco pinched the other end hesitantly. Something was niggling at him like it wasn’t right. Devin looked at them then began the activation word and Draco dropped his hand just as the other two were sucked away.

Theo stared at him with wide eyes. “What are you doing? Why didn’t you go with them? Are you giving up? We have to do everything we can! You’re the only one who can save her, you fucking arsehole!”

“I’m not though, Theo.” He turned to his friend and squeezed his shoulder. “All roads lead to you.”

He brushed Theo’s jacket and balled his fist, watching his friend’s incredulous face. He quirked his mouth. He flicked his wand and felt a hand clamp onto him.

They landed in the ruins of the Roman Forum. Theo had forced a Side-Along.

He looked at Draco, brows coming together. “What do you mean by that? What are you going to do?”

Draco unfisted his hand and used the other to pull out one of the vials from the Manor.

Theo glanced between them several times before drawing his gaze back up to Draco. “You think that will work? It’s been years now. If what Devin told me is true about her condition, do you really think I’d be able to help?”

Draco twisted the loose hairs he had taken from Theo’s jacket between his fingers. “Yes. I think it’s the only way. I think I have to look like you. Be you. She fucking loves you, mate. More than I’ve ever seen anyone love someone else.”

Theo cast his eyes to the ground. “Still, you think?”

“Always,” Draco said, his voice resigned.

“Wait, let’s just think about this for a little bit,” Theo started pacing.

Draco watched him but kept glancing around, he needed to get going and find her.

“Why here?” Theo asked.

“Something you said earlier. That Hermione would want to go somewhere that was already final for her. On the day you were supposed to have your grand society wedding, she told me she wished she’d died. That she’d rather have lost her life than lose you. I think I was the only person who knew that.”

Theo scoffed. “If she’d done that, I’d be dead anyway. I would have attacked that goddess and had the life smited out of me before I could blink. And I think back then my last thoughts would have been that at least I’d be wherever Hermione was.” He shook his head with a roll of his eyes.

Theo seemed a little angry. Draco crossed his arms.

“And yes, Theo. I will use the Polyjuice with or without your permission. I don’t much care how illegal it is.”

Theo shivered like it disgusted him. He caught Draco’s astonished face. “Sorry, just the thought of that. Venus’s magic means it feels disturbing to touch her. I still remember how it felt from that day. Like Hermione was all _wrong_ and the wrongness was seeping into my soul, blackening it.” He clenched his jaw before releasing it again. “I just- my body doesn’t like the thought of it.”

“Then I suggest you make yourself scarce,” Draco’s voice was hard.

“Hey, don’t get mad at me. This is a lot for me to have to be OK with. You’ll be with her, in _my_ body. And I guess you’re going to pretend you are me? So, she won’t know it’s you. She’ll think I’m cheating on Jackie to be with her one last time.”

“So, when you said we have to do everything we can, that was a lie?” Draco threw the words out like he despised them being in his mouth.

“I guess I never thought ‘we’ would mean very specifically me. It hasn’t meant me in a long time,” Theo sounded contrite now but still appeared deeply uncomfortable with what Draco needed to do.

“Just go Theo.”

There was a heavy pause between them. Draco had often been angry at Theo, but this was the first time in a very long while that he’d been disappointed in him. He’d always been the better one of them, the more moral one.

He could see Theo arguing inside his head. But logic was the only thing battling against all over his other emotions.

Draco checked his watch, they’d been here twelve minutes already, time was so incredibly short, and he couldn’t wait any longer.

He raised his wand. “Theo, stop delaying me or I’ll make you.” He hated it. The hurt in Theo’s face, the betrayal that Draco would choose Hermione over him. That Draco wouldn’t take the time to understand, nor give Theo time to process.

After an anguished moment, Theo’s shoulder slumped. “No, you’re right. Go,” he waved him away, but Theo couldn’t meet Draco’s eyes. He was crushed. Draco thought he might have done irrevocable damage with this action.

He turned his back on Theo and left.

He could see the place he recognised from Granger’s memory a couple minutes’ walk away. He found somewhere hidden from view and added Theo’s hair to the Polyjuice. He swallowed it down and waited. The hideous bubbling finally subsided. He exhaled to calm himself.

He picked a path through the ruins, and as the temple came more into view, he threw himself behind a pillar. She was there. Sitting on a bench and looking at the sky. He could see from here that she was crying, it made his heart pound dangerously with painful spikes. He felt as if someone was hammering a splintery wooden wedge into his chest, the organ protesting each torturous beat. Pleading with him to run and forget. It was so hard, so painful. But it also couldn’t give up on her.

He opened another calming draught and downed it, taking large inhales to fight his panic.

What if he couldn’t do this? What would happen to her? How could he watch her die? How _could_ she die? Hermione Granger couldn’t just die. She’d survived so much. She couldn’t die just because he’d failed once again. How would he ever recover? Would he?

He felt sick as his ratcheting anxiety fought with the draught, so he closed his eyes and focused on breathing.

_It’s going to be OK, Hermione. Theo will be there soon._

* * *

Hermione sat on the stone bench she’d once had a meltdown on. The ruins of the Temple of Venus were behind her, the shadows of the columns just starting to grow as the sun rose higher. Her modified _Tempus_ charm showed there were forty-one minutes left until the end of the Transit.

She smiled. There wasn’t really anything else to do now.

She tickled the soles of her feet through the dry summer grass. She’d taken off her shoes a while ago. They didn’t seem terribly important and she so rarely went barefoot outdoors.

Her runes had been throbbing from when the end of the Transit had begun. It had started small aside from the initial burst of pain, but they were also glowing now, the shining light making its way through her dress and glimmering over her arm. It was very pretty for something that was a harbinger of doom.

Her fingers lazily played with the velvet ribbon on her other wrist. She’d cast protection charms on it and spelled out for how to activate it as a Portkey. A message would be sent to the Italian Embassy at exactly 6.49am reporting the incident and she would cast concealment charms on herself beforehand. She’d planned for this. She’d made it as easy as possible.

She breathed in the already warm Roman air. She missed Italy. She’d never been happier than the years she spent here with Theo. She gave another small smile. She slightly regretted leaving the sunstone at Villa Borghese, but it had felt right at the time.

She sighed and her eyes swam with tears again. She wished she could see him. Not the present Theo, of course. But she desperately wanted to see the one that was hers. The one whose eyes lit up when he saw her and kissed her like she was all that mattered in the world. The one who had loved her through her lies and who she’d counted on as a partner, an equal. The one person who understood her inside and out and celebrated her for it.

Her heart broke for the last time and her back spasmed as the sobs wracked her. She felt like she’d failed the memory of them. She’d told him she would treasure every day that she loved him, but that hadn’t been true. She still loved him with everything that was in her, but she didn’t treasure it. She wanted it gone. She wanted what he had, a void, a nothingness, a way that she wouldn’t think about losing him every day. The traitorous thoughts pulling her apart with guilt as her love for him crucified her for thinking that way. She clutched at her chest as it threatened to tear itself apart and her cries became whimpering and keening.

She had no idea how long she fell into it. Her last half hour in this world and she was spending it with her head in her hands, sobbing into her knees. She forced herself upright and to open to her eyes. But the world was blurry and waterlogged. What was even the point? She felt guilty that she only had fleeting thoughts of Harry who had always made her feel important and loved and Devin who had been so loyal and steadfast through everything. Who she had betrayed right at the end.

No, she was consumed by need for him. She wanted to see his dimpled smile and feel his hands on her and run her fingers through his dark hair. She wanted to kiss him so badly and breathe in the sounds he made like it would oxygenate her blood.

“I’m sorry, Theo. I’m sorry for everything I did to us. I sorry for everything I did to myself. I’m sorry. I miss you, I love you, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Gods I love you so much.”

And it was finally too much. She couldn’t bear it anymore.

Shaking hands brought out the vial from her dress, she took off the protective film and uncorked it.

She tipped her head to the sky that was soon coming to claim her and allowed herself one last clear thought as her story ended and a tear leaked out of the corner of her eye, dripping into her hair.

“Theo…” she breathed.

* * *

Draco heard the exhalation of Theo’s name just as he reached the top of the hill behind her and the bench she sat on came into view.

He mustered all his courage and brought forth the warmth and care he knew his friend used to use with her. His brave, brilliant, lovely Hermione.

“Hey sweetness.”

She whirled around, an empty vial leaving her lips and she coughed, her breath rattling. One hand went to her throat, the other limp and dropped the vial, smashing it on the ground.

A dire, ravenous roaring panic overtook him.

Everything stopped. His splintered heart was beating far too fast and he was shaking, quivering with wanting to reject the scene in front of him.

“No,” he wanted to rush to her side, but he could barely make himself walk forward. “Hermione, tell me you didn’t. Please, oh gods, please. No. No, no, no.”

She collapsed to lean her body on her arm, bracing on the stone. The choked sound of an animal dying left him as he edged closer. He must be crying because she wasn’t in focus.

Then without realising, he was beside her. His hands were trembling as he gingerly touched her shoulders. She was looking at him with a loving wonder. She was oddly calm like she thought he wasn’t real.

She smiled and brought her hand to his face. She looked happy. Like he was fulfilling her last wish.

“Hermione,” his voice sounded so unfamiliar and it cracked in wrenching pain. “What did you take darling?”

“Hi Theo,” she said. “I miss you so much.”

“The potion Hermione? What was in it?” he noticed her inner lip was starting to turn grey and was that… flaking? Horror arrested him, dug rancid claws into his flesh and sunk poisonous fangs into his soul while laughing. If it was what he thought it was, they had maybe two minutes before she was gone.

He gripped her hand, that was caressing his face, crushing it hard in his fingers. “Hermione. Please, Hermione. Please tell me it wasn’t Gravewitch Brew?”

She dragged herself closer and curled up in his lap, nodding against his shoulder.

His eyes squeezed shut in renewed agony. Drawing her close, wrapping an arm around her, his convulsing fingers reached for his wand and the Protean. He concentrated hard to get the message right the first time.

_Bezoar. Venus Temple. Hurry._

When he’d finished it, he gathered Hermione in both arms close to his chest. They probably had a minute and a half before the cremation potion properly entered her bloodstream after fighting through her stomach acid to begin destroying her body from the inside out. He didn’t know how to put someone in a magical coma or how to stop the potion from taking effect. The only thing was to force her to swallow a bezoar and hopefully soak up the poison.

He smoothed Hermione’s hair back and looked down at her. She looked so serene like she wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. She raised a hand to move a lock of hair off his forehead. Her lips lifting in a small smile again.

“I love you so much, Theo. It never faded, even as I was haunted by what happened every day. All I wanted was to be yours. I love you.”

Draco sobbed. Bringing her even closer in a way that probably wasn’t comfortable for her, but he just needed as much of her near as he could. He could feel her strength ebbing away. Her skin was turning grey, the blue-green veins in her forearm turning a dull slate and Draco knew they weren’t going to make it. It had eaten away her stomach lining and was spilling through the rest of her already.

There wouldn’t even be anything left of her to bring back to his parents.

“Why, Hermione? Why are you going to leave me?” the words hurt to say but it was nothing compared to the way they felt, like a vice was around his heart, cinching tighter and tighter. The pressure was immense, and huge broken cries left him. The tears splashing onto her face, dowsing her with grief.

She slowly blinked, her face falling for the first time since she’d seen him. “No, Theo,” her voice was rasping and fractured. “Don’t be sad. How can I make it bet-better?” A clotting cough seized her throat and Draco leaned her forward as she spat a chunk of viscous ashen matter onto the ground.

There was another crack and Theo was there. The real Theo. He took one look at Draco and a tear slid out of him.

“Oh Draco. Oh no. Fuck. Shit. No.”

Hermione’s eyes had glazed over. The Gravewitch Brew was eating away at her brain stem, Draco could feel the stiff vertebra in her neck becoming softer as the concoction dissolved the bone. She must be in immeasurable pain, yet she had smiled thinking she was looking at Theo.

He wasn’t even entirely sure when the awareness had left her. He had been the only one there and hadn’t even properly documented it. It was probably when he’d been distracted from Theo’s arrival so she wouldn’t have even been looking into Theo’s eyes when her mind slipped away.

Theo stood, absolutely stricken as portions of Hermione’s flesh began to corrode away into piles of ash. Parts of her were already floating away into the whispering breeze.

Draco felt a crumbling under his left hand and as he lifted it away, her shoulder and upper arm fell into cinders. Clumps of the grey lifeless matter clinging to his clammy palms. And his eyes filled anew as he used his other hand to try brush it off. But then both of his hands were covered in her and he didn’t know what to do.

He stared at them, tears falling forever, thinking insane thoughts. Maybe he should keep it there to gather up or… or maybe he should get it off him. Was it offensive? Would she have hated it, the remains of her flesh stuck to someone she despised? Would- should he rub it in? Try to absorb a little bit of her? He could feel parts of his mind trying to call him back behind the safety of his walls, but he thought perhaps lunacy suited him right now.

“Draco, let her go.” Theo was trying to coax him but how could he let her go when he was coated in her?

Another crack and Devin was there. He was bleeding rather badly, splinched most likely, and he let out a screaming wail when the saw the state Hermione was in. About half crushed to dust and the rest only holding shape because it hadn’t been disturbed yet.

His hands hovered over what was left of her body with keening gulps of air leaving him, as he collapsed on the ground.

Another crack and two more hoarse, raw screams. Harry and Ginny. Harry stepped too close, his body sifting some of the ash onto the ground and Ginny had to hold him back, crying with wild wracking moans as her husband screamed and screamed for his best friend.

Draco took all this in, still staring at his hands, barely breathing as silent tracks of tears fell from him. He couldn’t look beyond his hands because he’d become consciously aware of the where his tears were making sodden pits. The cinders of where Hermione’s hair and face used to be now just piles of flaking dust embedding his clothing.

A strange glow emanated from Ginny’s side and then faded as the Transit ended.

Draco forgot himself and buried his face in his hands then pulled himself upright panicking when he remembered they had Hermione all over them.

He could hear himself saying something but didn’t have the presence of mind to know what it was. All he knew was the cold cracking fissures of a grief-tinged panic attack. Then Theo was in front of him telling him to breathe. He was covered in blood, he must have been helping Devin.

Then there were so many people. People yelling in English and Italian. He scrabbled for Theo’s hand as they were separated and he was Apparated to a hospital where he crumpled up in pain again, his first thought being he should have known its location to get Hermione here when she’d needed it.

Healers were asking him questions, but he couldn’t understand what they were saying. His body forgoing hearing to just try keep the meagre amounts of air he was allowing himself to breathe.

He was laid in a bed and they had replaced his clothing for a hospital robe. He grieved for the parts of her that he’d carried in with him but was also relieved they were gone. Which in turn made him cry again in guilt.

The Healers hurried to force potions into him.

He blinked. He could hear again now, whatever they had him on was coursing through his veins, making everything swim but in a way he could deal with. There were dancing lights in the room and memories of her played in them. He watched them with wonder until his eyes drooped with exhaustion.

He was tired. So tired. He turned on his side. He saw her. Hand reaching to cup his face, the adoring light in her eyes, the small smile on her lips. The memory had her voice and everything in him that hadn’t already expired died.

“I love you.”

He couldn’t say it back to the mind-projected apparition, but he thought it.

He closed his eyes and as he drifted off to sleep, he hoped that he never woke up.

* * *

_June 6th 2013_

Oliver Wood was already late and supposed to be heading to the Ministry when a red and gold leather book in the Flourish & Blotts window caught his attention with an advertisement of the new release.

He went in and walked tentatively to a table laden with copies. _Soul Magic and the Self by Draco Malfoy and Mortimer Baumgarten._

Oliver flipped the book open and read the inscription on the first page:

_Draco Malfoy dedicates this book to the memory of Hermione Jean Granger_   
_A most brilliant witch who I failed one too many times._   
_I never told you._   
_I’m sorry._

Oliver smiled sadly at the words.

“Yeah, I never told her either.”

Then he put the book back and left.


End file.
